Rick Warren - Radical Faith—Part Two

Hello, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is

the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, we're so

glad you've joined us. Today. We're continuing a powerful series

called radicalis Developing Spiritual Roots. And in this series, Rick

will show you how to grow deep in your faith,

stay grounded in God's word, and become everything He created

you to be. And now here's part two of a

message called radical Faith.

You know, one time when I was preparing for this message,

I asked, hey, honey, can you ever think of a

time that you obeyed God when he told you to

do something even when it didn't make sense? And she

said yes. When you asked me to marry you, I said, okay,

in hindsight, was it a good thing? She said yes.

I said, you're a babe. Tom's gonna do the third

facet of radical faith?

What does it mean to have radical faith?

The third thing is persisting when I don't feel like it,

persisting even when I don't.

Feel like it.

There is a belief in our culture that is so

strong every one of us are influenced by it. Whether

we want to be influenced by it or not, we

all know this belief. The belief is if it feels good,

that's the belief. If it feels good, I should do it.

If it doesn't feel good, I shouldn't do it. And

whether I want to be influenced by that or not,

I am. And when I allow myself to be, I

become manipulated by my moods instead of living a life

of faith. And God wants you and I to live

a different kind of life, a life of faith, not

just a life of feeling.

Truth is, I don't always feel like doing the right thing.

I don't know about you. I don't always feel like.

Being nice to people like I see you out in

the store or something. I don't always feel like being

nice to you most of the time, but not always.

You're never going to know now whether I felt like

it or not when I smile at you.

But I just don't always feel like, Hell, my wife,

I really felt like washing the dishes, or Luke comes

down and says, hey, could you read through this homework

paper eleven o'clock at night. I don't feel like reading

through the paper at that moment. I just don't always

feel like doing the right thing. But God can give

you a kind of faith that persists above feelings.

And the truth of the matter is, if you look.

At all of life, anybody who's successful at anything does

things that they don't feel like doing that other people

don't feel like doing. An Olympic athlete practices.

When they don't feel like it.

A great musician exercises practice and understanding how to do

their craft even when they don't feel like it. If

you're going to be a great salesman a great saleswoman,

that means you make calls that other people don't feel

like making.

And if you want, if you want to get.

Closer to God in your life, deep in your relationship

with him, that means you spend time with Him sometimes.

Even when you don't feel like it.

You find somebody who really enjoys spending time with God,

that means they spend time with God sometimes even when they.

Didn't feel like it. Faith is being persistent. Faith is

refusing to give up no matter how tired you are.

Now, that's great to say, but the big question is

how do you become persistent?

Because I don't know about you. I don't always feel

like being persistent. Is that true about you? So how

do you get there?

The Bible talks about how you and I can begin

to develop persistence in our lives.

For the example of a guy by.

The name of Moses, Hebrews chapter eleven, This hall of

fame of faith. Bible says in Hebrews eleven twenty seven,

it was by faith that Moses left Egypt, and he

was not afraid of the king's anger. He held to

his purposes like a man who could encircle these last

three words.

Would you see the invisible? That's how you get there,

That's how you persist.

You begin to see the invisible. You see what God

can do in your life. The invisible is God, and

only those who see the invisible can do the impossible.

Only those who see who God really is can persist.

In the most difficult times of life, you realize there's more.

Than you can see, and it's who you can say.

It's God being present in your life.

Now, some of you, you need to.

Hear this right now, the Bible says the Hebrews eleven one.

What is faith.

It is the confident assurance that what we hope for

is going to happen. It is the evidence of things

that we cannot yet see. But some of you right now,

you don't have any confident assurance. The truth of the

matter is, instead of feeling like persisting, you feel like

you want.

To give up. Christmas can do that to us.

I love Christmas almost everything about it. The one thing

I hate about it is that sometimes it turns up

the volume on our pain.

You had a bad year.

It feels worse at Christmas time, our relationship's not going right.

It feels like it's even going more downhill. At Christmas time.

You messed up this last year. All you can think

about is how you messed up this last year. Right now,

let me ask you, let me ask you to have

a kind of faith you've never thought of having before.

Let me ask you to have the faith right now

to believe that God loves you no matter what, no

matter what happened last year, no matter who isn't loving

you right now, no matter how you messed up in

your life, God still loves you. Faith is persisting even

when you don't feel like it, Even if you do

not feel like God loves you. He loves you, even

if you don't know the confidence that God is with you.

He is with you. So right now I want to

invite you in your heart in your.

Mind say I don't feel it, but God, I accept it.

You love me no matter what, no matter how much

I messed up, Hang on because.

God will make a way.

First Christmas, there are a lot of things that people

did because they didn't feel like it.

I mean, think about Joseph and Mary.

You think that Joseph felt like keeping his wife a

virgin after they were married and tell Jesus was born.

I don't think so, but he did. Think of them

traveling to Bethlehem when Mary was nine months pregnant. Ladies,

you think Mary felt like getting on a donkey at

nine months pregnant and going to bethlamb.

I don't think so, but they did it anyway.

And because they did what they didn't feel like doing,

you and I get to benefit from their faith and

you when you make the choice to have faith, it

not only benefits you, it benefits everyone around you. That's

what happens when you have the faith to persist when

you don't feel like it.

The fourth facet of radical faith announcing it in order

to experience it, Announcing it in order to experience it.

Faith is believing when I don't see it, obeying when

I don't understand it, persisting when I don't feel like it,

and announcing it in order to experience it. In other words,

sometimes you have to say it in order to sense it.

You've got to state it in order to feel it.

It is the power of your words. It is speaking

in faith. If you've kind of lost that love and

feeling for your wife, you know how to get it back.

Start saying it. Start telling your wife I love you.

Just say it. You say I don't feel it, don't

wait till you feel it. Say it to sense it.

And you start saying I love you, I love you,

I love you. You know what, the feelings will return. You

want to learn to love God. You said I don't

feel like I love God. Start telling him it. Maybe

you've never said God, I love you, Father, I love you.

Maybe you've never said Jesus, I love you. You know,

if you start saying it, the feelings will come. It

is the power of your words. You say it to

sense it, you announce it in order to experience it.

Now that's radical faith. One of the examples of this

there in the Hall of Fame in Hebrews eleven is

the illustration of Joseph.

It says.

It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about

to die, confidently spoke of God bringing the people of

Israel out of Egypt. And he was so sure of

it that he commanded them to carry his bones with

him when they left. You know the story how Joseph

got sold into slavery, went into Egypt. Things were downhill

for him. Eventually, through the experiences of God, became number

two in command under Pharaoh, saved the nation, saved Israel.

But after that Pharaoh died, the Jews were enslaved, and

for four hundred years they were enslaved in Egypt. But Joseph,

long before they went back to the promised land, four

hundred years for it, he announced. He says, I know

one day God's going to let us go back home

to Israel, and so I want you to promise me

that I'll be dead. I want you to take my

bones and bury them in Israel. What's he doing He

is stating it in advance. He is announcing it in

order to experience it. In fact, this is how God

creates everything. God creates by the spoken word. God created

the entire universe by speaking it into existence. Let there

be light Bam, there's light. Let there be a sun

and moon. Pam, there's a sun and moon. God doesn't

have to go through long things. He could if he

wanted to, but he could just speak it into existence.

In fact, here's what the Bible says, Hebrews eleven three.

By faith, we see the world called into existence. God

spoke it into existence, called into existence by God's word.

And what we see created by what we don't see.

And then soa I'm thirty three right underneath that on

your atlant it says for he spoke and then it

came to be. Now, this is no contradiction to scientific theory.

I mean people talk about the Big Bang. Believe me,

when you think God spoke the universe of existence, there

is probably a big bang where you Wherever you got

a creation, you got a creator. Wherever you got a defect,

there is a cause. If I'm walking down the mountain

and I see a rock out of place, I can say, oh, yeah,

that's an accident. If I'm walking down the mountain and

I see a rolex, that is evidence of design. And

it is stupidity for me to say it just all happened.

That rolex is evidence of design. You see, I don't

have enough faith to be an atheist. It takes far

more faith to believe something came out of nothing than

to believe that creation was made by a creator. Far

more faith. You see, we disproved spontaneous generation in the

Middle Ages. Nobody believes that anymore. Things don't just come

to life out of nothing. Now, if you do happen

to believe that, then you need to be intellectually honest,

because if you say, I believe something could just happen

out of nothing, there was no cause to it, it

just happened out of nothing, then you would have obviously

no problem believing that when Christ died he could come

back to life, because it would take less faith to

believe life can come back to life than to believe

life came out of nothing. For intellectual honesty, you couldn't say, well,

I believe in one but not the other. God spoke

it into existence. And what the Bible says is that

God gives us that power in our words too. We

announce it in order to experience it. And the Bible

makes a direct connection between your words, what you say,

and the quality of the life you live. You don't

realize how much your words affect you, affect everybody else,

and affect the environment around you and even history. In fact,

the Bible says this on the screen Proverbs eighteen twenty one.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

You can slice people, you can kill them with your words.

You can add life and vitality with your words. You

know this to be true. People today have had their

lives ruined by a single sentence. Some people today are

still remembering and acting on something one sentence that was

said to them by their parents, or by their peers,

or by their partners. Are on the playground, and years later,

one simple little sentence still haunts their memory. Their death

and life is in the power of our words. You

have enormous power in your words, And the Bible says faith,

what you say and what you receive from God is connected.

Our words and faith are together. In fact, Jesus said

this here on the screen, Matthew eight ten eighteen. I

tell you the truth. Whatever you bind on earth will

be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth

will be loosed in heaven. What's he talking about there,

He's talking about the power of our words, the power

of our words to bless people, or the power our

words to put them down, to curse them, the power

words to give life or death in people's lives. Now,

sometimes speaking in faith appears foolish to people of not faith,

because when you're announcing it in advance, when you're announcing

it in order to experience it, it looks like you

don't know what you're talking about, like you're out of

touch with reality, and it seems foolish to other people.

For instance, God often changed people's names in the Bible

to indicate where they were going, not where they were

at at that moment. God took a man named Abram,

and he changed his name to Abraham. Now Abraham means

father of many nations. There's only one problem. Abraham had

no kids. So at ninety nine years of age, his

name is Abraham. And somebody comes in and says, what's

your name, father of many nations? Oh, it's great, how

many kids you got none? How old are you? Ninety nine? Oops,

it's a little embarrassing to have your name be father

of many nations. You're ninety nine years old and no kids.

What was God doing? He was announcing it in order

to experience it and the Bible says this on the

back of your outline Romans four to eleven. God said,

I have made you a father of many nations. God

who gives life to the dead and calls things that

are not as though they were. And see that's faith, friends,

Faith is calling that which is not as though it is,

is announcing it in order to experience it. In fact,

look at the Living Bible translation of this verse. God

speaks of future events with as much certainty as though

they were already past. He's announcing the future in the

present as though it's passed. And that's faith. The friends,

if you want to understand your pastor me, you need

to understand that I have the gift of faith. We

all have different gifts. Everybody's got different gifts. You have

spiritual gifts to people. Next, do you have spiritual gifts.

One of my spiritual gifts is faith, and I have

this in a strong measure to announce it in order

to experience it. I live in the world of faith,

in spiritual reality. In other words, I'm always talking about

what it can be, not what it is, and I'm

always visualizing the future for people. Now, this is why

the way I preach here at Saddleback is different than

maybe you have heard from some other pastors. Sometimes you'll

hear pastors say, well, I just believe in telling it

like it is. Well, that's a good thing. At least

it's the truth. But there's a far better way to

teach than tell it like it is. Tell it like

it could be. Telling it like it is never changes anybody.

Labeling only reinforces the present. Telling it like it could

be is teaching and preaching for faith, and that causes

people to change. When you label somebody and you just

tell them what they are, it doesn't motivate them to change.

When you tell them what they could be, that's preaching

for faith. It's calling things that are not as though

they were. If somebody comes to me and says rick A,

you're a lousy father, my tendency would be to say,

I start thinking of all the ways I could have

been a better father. Well, I could have done that,

and I could have done that, and I could have

done that and could yeah, and you're right, I'm a

lousy father. I could have been a better father. That

doesn't change me. But if somebody comes to me and says,

rick I see in you the potential to be a

great father, a great dad. I see in you, with

your life committed to Christ and God's spirit living in you,

you could be an incredible godly man. You could be

a man of God that your kids would love and honor,

and that your wife would cherish. You could be the

kind of godly man that the neighborhood and community would respect.

And I see in you that spark, that potential if

you'll just let Christ control your life, that motivates me

to change. Tell it like it could be. Not the

way does nagging work? Has it ever worked on you? Nagging? No,

it doesn't work from the pulpit either. That's why I

don't nag you every week. It's why I don't not

get up here every week and do sin of the week.

You're blowing this, you're doing this, you're doing And there's

a lot of stuff I could say about you, really,

but I don't, because why just telling you all the

things you're doing wrong? Hey, come back next week and

I'll tell you ten more things you're doing wrong. Yeah,

In fact, bring a friend. You don't get that kind

of teaching it saddleback, Why it doesn't change anybody. It

is faith that wells up in our heart that changes,

not telling it like it is, but telling it like

it could be, and doing it the way God says,

calling things that are not as though they were. You

can do this, friends. Every single major milestone in Saddleback

Church's history, I spoke it into existence. I announced it.

This is what's gonna happen before anybody else believed it.

Every single time nobody else believed it. When I was

held the very first service of Saddleback and sixty people,

the little trial run service before Easter, and I got

up and I read a vision called the Saddleback Vision.

Some of you seen that stateton where I outlined the

kind of campus have and what the buildings would look like,

and that we were gonna have twenty thousand members by

twenty twenty, and that we would have fifty acres of land.

And everybody lacked. Oh yeah, who is this twenty five

year old kid who's saying we're gonna want to have

fifty acres and twenty thousand members. The only problem with

that vision it was too small. God wanted us to

have one hundred and twenty acres, and we hit the

twenty thousand mark in the year two thousand, not twenty twenty. This,

by the way, is how we're saved by speaking and

advance our salvation by confessing our faith in Christ. That's

an announcing in advance. Look at this verse the Bible says,

for it is by our faith that we're put right

with God. It is by our confession that means we

speak it that we are saved, which, by the way,

is why I lead into prayer every week at the

end of the service, and I say, I want you

to pray this prayer. Why I'm causing you to speak,

to confess your faith. I'm helping verbalize for you your faith

in God. That's why we always have a prayer at

the end of this prayer. If you've never invited Christ

in your life, I'm going to invite you to do that,

to follow me in that prayer. And when we're baptized,

we're publicly confessing our faith, saying to the world I'm

not ashamed to say I'm a believer.

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